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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Ideals
Mathematician
Mathematics
Surely
Poet
Ideal
Passion
Mathematical
Union
Math
Unions
Fervor
Measure
Correctness

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The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
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I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.
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Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.
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Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for, and is therefore right in postulating, may be enveloped in a wider order, on which she has no claim at all.
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Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
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For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
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Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins
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If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
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Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
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Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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